LAFAYETTE — The City Council on Tuesday night took its regulations for medical marijuana and transferred them to the recreational side, as elected leaders made it clear that Lafayette is ready to welcome legal retail marijuana sales and grows in the city.

The council passed a series of ordinances on first reading that establish buffer zones around marijuana businesses, set a limit on the locations of grow houses and manufacturing facilities, and amend the city's moratorium on retail pot shops to allow the only medical marijuana dispensary in Lafayette to convert to retail sales.

A second reading of the measures, likely to happen March 4, is required before they can take effect.

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The council took divergent directions Tuesday regarding the future look of retail marijuana in Lafayette, opting to maintain stricter buffers around pot shops to limit their numbers while raising the cap for the number of cultivation and manufacturing locations allowed in the city.

But the new rules largely mirror what exists now for medical marijuana.

City Planning Director Phillip Patterson started off the evening telling the council that reducing the buffer between shops would bring several buildings that could play host to new cannabis shops into the city's legal zone.

"Reducing it from 1,000 feet to 750 feet opens it up to bring in another store," he said.

But the suggestion didn't sit well with several council members. Councilwoman Alexandra Lynch cautioned her colleagues to take a conservative approach.

"I do not want Lafayette to become the destination pot place on the plains," she said. "Keeping things fairly narrowly defined as we move forward is prudent."

The decision to maintain the bigger buffer between stores means there will likely be only one pot shop in the city for the foreseeable future because few alternate locations would be available under the rules. Herbal Wellness, the sole dispensary in Lafayette, plans to convert to a dual license facility in the next couple of months, said owner Eric Ryant.

Future pot shops are boxed out by several other buffer restrictions, including setbacks from schools, hospitals and commercial corridors.

On the wholesale side, several council members heard pleas from audience members who said the suggested cap of five locations for grow houses and manufacturing facilities was too low.

Jerry Sloat, who owns a warehouse in Lafayette's industrial district, said he has tenants who grow marijuana for commercial distribution and they run professional businesses. He urged the council to allow more operations of that type in the city.

"If you ask people where are the cultivation facilities in the industrial zone in Lafayette — unless you're involved in this business — no one would know," he said.

Karin Lazarus, who makes cannabis-infused edibles in Boulder, said she wants to start her own grow operation in Lafayette so that she can "take more control over the medicine we make for our patients."

But with four locations already accounted for and a fifth one with a pending application in with the city, Lazarus would be boxed out if the threshold remained five. The council agreed to increase the limit on wholesale locations to six.

Councilwoman Staci Lupberger was the most reticent to allow retail pot in Lafayette, casting the only "no" vote several times on the ordinances or parts of ordinances.

Citing Lafayette as a family-friendly community, she challenged her colleagues to justify why the city should allow pot businesses when a larger city, like Longmont, doesn't.

Several council members cited the overwhelming support voters in Colorado, and in Lafayette specifically, gave to marijuana legalization measure Amendment 64 in 2012. Others said pot shops should be treated the same as liquor stores.

"People want to have it, and it's up to us not to ban it but to control it," Councilman Tom Dowling said.

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